Miami AD Blake James: We won’t ask UNC to reimburse travel costs for postponed game
University of North Carolina players and managers released a statement of apology after their Monday night home game against the University of Miami was postponed because a video surfaced showing multiple unmasked players partying with students following their Saturday win over Duke.
UM coaches became aware of the video during the pregame meal a few hours before the game and contacted athletic director Blake James to express their reluctance to play the game for fear the Tar Heels players had been exposed to the COVID-19 virus.
Within an hour, after consultation with ACC and UNC officials, a mutual decision was made to postpone the game.
The decision came hours after The Daily Tar Heel, the school newspaper, posted a Snapchat video that shows UNC players Day’Ron Sharpe and Armando Bacot partying with other unmasked students after UNC’s 91-87 win over Duke.
UNC players and team managers released the following apology:
“Saturday night, a number of players and managers — not just the ones shown on the video that was seen — got together to celebrate our win at Duke. Our intention was to celebrate privately within our group. Unfortunately, we allowed several friends who are not members of the team to join the gathering. We were inside and not wearing masks, which were mistakes.
“We apologize for not adhering to the University’s and athletic department’s guidelines and apologize to Coach Williams and his staff for not stepping forward when he first addressed it with us on Sunday. We have worked too hard for eight months doing the right things to make those kinds of mistakes at this point in the season. We are hopeful we will be able to play again soon and wish to remind everyone to stay safe so this pandemic will be over as soon as possible.”
UNC coach Roy Williams also released a statement: “I appreciate the players voicing their apology. They made a mistake. They’ve been fantastic for more than eight months in the way they have dealt with the whole situation with the virus. But they realize they did make a mistake, for which they are paying a very significant price.”
UM athletic director Blake James told the Herald on Tuesday that Miami will not ask UNC to cover the travel costs the Hurricanes incurred for the game that never happened. The Canes flew up and back on a charter flight.
Blake discussed it again on the Joe Rose Show on 560 The Joe on Wednesday morning.
“We’ve been blessed in that we had not had COVID impact in our men’s or women’s basketball programs and going into this game we were the only team that was on schedule to play all its 20 ACC games, a credit to Coach Larranaga and the young men on the team who bought into our protocols,” James said. “What happened Monday you hate to have happen, but it was the right decision for us.”
Asked why they will not ask UNC to reimburse UM for the costs, James said: “As the league we share in a lot of different expenses. We had that expense on our books for this year. Obviously, we were disappointed not to play, a lot went into it. We’ll talk to UNC and see if there will be a makeup date or not, but it’s not something where we said, `UNC needs to pay for this.’’’
This story was originally published February 10, 2021 at 11:23 AM.